QATAR’S FOREIGN POLICY AND THE ARAB SPRING Cover Image

KATAR DIŞ POLİTİKASI VE ARAB BAHARI
QATAR’S FOREIGN POLICY AND THE ARAB SPRING

Author(s): Burak Gümüş, İsmail Ermağan
Subject(s): Economy
Published by: Celal Bayar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü
Keywords: Middle East, Arap Spring, Qatar, USA military bases, Al-Jazeera

Summary/Abstract: As the Middle East and the Persian Gulf is the energy centre with global impact, this region can be regarded as one of the main research topics in the international relations. This article focuses on the importance of Qatar in the Middle East policies and discusses its approach towards the Arab Spring. The country, which abandoned its traditional role as mediator and neutralist foreign policy and switched over to active interventionism, gained some importance as an influential actor, but had tore consider its attitude after the civil war in Syria and the coup d'état in Egypt. The Qatari case shows that both democratic and geopolitical developments intersect and global, regional actors and sub-national actors determine this process. This study claims that if there is a probability of change of the current regional order due to the peoples' demands then there is also a risk. Qatar can reach its political goals, only if it is able to manage its foreign policy, symbolically representing a zigzag course within a magic square consisting of “old order, new demands, global balance and regional power relations balance”.

  • Issue Year: 12/2014
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 300-320
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Turkish